Sterling Ruby

Sterling Ruby uses a wide range of aesthetic strategies in his practice, from saturated, glossy, poured polyurethane sculptures, to drawings, collages, richly glazed ceramics, graffiti inspired spray paint paintings, and video. In opposition to the minimalist artistic tradition and influenced by the ubiquity of urban graffiti, the artist’s works often appear scratched, defaced, camouflaged, dirty or splattered.

The artist has cited a diverse range of sources and influences including aberrant psychologies (particularly schizophrenia and paranoia), urban gangs and graffiti, hip-hop culture, craft, punk, masculinity, violence, public art, prisons, globalization, American domination and decline, waste and consumption. Even as his work deals with issues related to the violence and pressures within society, and art history, it also reflects his personal history. In all of his work, he vacillates between the fluid and static, the minimalist and expressionistic, the pristine and the defaced. His voracious cycling through materials and subject matter has given rise to recurring series and extended bodies of work.

Ruby’s work is collected by numerous international collections, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas; Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Museum of Modern Art, New York; The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco; Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris and Tate Modern, London.

Sterling Ruby was born in Bitburg, Germany, in
1972. He lives and works in Los Angeles.